Acclaimed Israeli intelligence analyst Avi Melamed has spent more than thirty years interpreting Middle East affairs. His long-awaited Inside the Middle East challenges widely-accepted perceptions and provides a gripping and uniquely enlightening guide to make sense of the events unfolding in the region-to answer how the Arab world got to this point, what is currently happening, what the ramifications will be, how they will affect Israel, and what actions must immediately be under...

Why Is the Middle East Entering a “New Era?” Is It a New Dawn? Is It a Setting Sun?In the third decade of the twenty-first century, the Middle East is entering a new era. A multifaceted and intricate equilibrium will write the next chapter of this region. The new era we are entering is fraught with challenges and full of opportunities.The new era is both defined by, and a result of, a combination of ancient and modern, domestic, regional, and international ...

Acclaimed Israeli intelligence analyst Avi Melamed has spent more than thirty years interpreting Middle East affairs. His long-awaited Inside the Middle East challenges widely accepted perceptions and provides a gripping and uniquely enlightening guide to make sense of the events unfolding in the region.Melamed considers all the major power players in the Middle East, explains the underlying issues, and creates a three-dimensional picture, an illustration that connects the...

New York Times bestseller: A “detailed and informed” look at the history and tactics of the global terror group—and how to defeat it (Richard Engel, from the foreword).ISIS—the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria—has taken on the mantle of being the single most dangerous terrorist threat to global security since al-Qaeda. In Defeating ISIS, internationally renowned intelligence veteran and counterterrorism expert Malcolm Nance gives an insider’s view ...

This thrilling account of WWII espionage by the former French secret service chief chronicles an Allied spy's actions in the German Cipher Office.A spy for the French Secret Service during World War II, Hans-Thilo Schmidt was embedded in the nerve center of the Third Reich. From deep within Hitler's most sensitive operations, Schmidt created an intelligence network between France, Poland, and England. In The Spy in Hitler's Inner Circle, France's former se...

“There’s a whole chapter on my son Beau… He was co-located [twice] near these burn pits.”–Joe Biden, former Vice President of the United States of AmericaThe Agent Orange of the 21st Century… Thousands of American soldiers are returning from the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan with severe wounds from chemical war. They are not the victims of ruthless enemy warfare, but of their own military commanders. These soldiers, afflicted with rar...

Everybody has got to die, but I have always believed an exception would be made in my case.” William Saroyan, Pulitzer Prizewinning authorFamous authors, like everybody else, know that one day they will die. Final Chapters tells the fascinating stories of more than one hundred writers’ encounters with death-and their attitudes toward the Grim Reaper: fear, uncertainty, or acceptance.Francis Bacon wrote, It is as natural to die as to be born,” w...

Between 1933 and 1945, more than 500,000 German citizens resisted the Nazi government. Many were imprisoned for political crimes which included both active attempts to remove Hitler from office and passive attempts to oppose the Nazi regime. Resistance was found among university students, churches and even in the German military.This fascinating and compelling history of the German resistance covers groups and methods from underground newspapers such as "Rote Kapella" and "Internal...

Check out the weird and wonderful facts in this massive encyclopedia of alphabetized oddities:HUMANS ARE THE ONLY ANIMALS THAT ENJOY SPICY FOOD (there’s a reason no one sells Tabasco-flavored cat food).NAPPING CAN SAVE YOU FROM A HEART ATTACK (assuming you are not operating heavy machinery at the time).PSYCHOLOGISTS CAN ASSESS YOUR PERSONALITY FROM HOW YOU DIP FRIES IN KETCHUP (nice fries, sociopath).SURFING THE INTERNET ACTUALLY MAKES YOU SMARTER (but not a...

Chris Hedges on the most taboo topics in America, with David Talbot.The War on Terror is a profitable crusade against convenient enemies. Muslim rage” is an understandable response to US state terror. Rising oligarchy in America has made democracy a sham and turned the electoral process into an increasingly absurd circus. Police violence against minorities is part of a systematic effort to crush social discontent. Proliferating violence against women’s health clin...

For thousands of years, pirates have terrorized the ocean voyager and the coastal inhabitant, plundered ship and shore, and wrought havoc on the lives and livelihoods of rich and poor alike. Around these desperate men has grown a body of myths and legends-fascinating tales that today strongly influence our notions of pirates and piracy. Most of these myths derive from the pirates of the Golden Age,” from roughly 1655 to 1725. This was the age of the Spanish Main, of Henry Morgan and Black...

A New York Times BestsellerFrank Sinatra desperately wanted to be part of John F. Kennedy, Jr.’s gang. He had his own famed Rat Pack,” made up of hard drinking, womanizing individuals like himself-guys like Dean Martin, Sammy Davis, Jr., and Peter Lawford-but the guy Ol’ Blue Eyes” really wanted to hang with was Lawford’s brother-in-law, the real chairman of the board, John F. Kennedy.In Sinatra and the Jack Pack, Michael Sheridan delves...